STEVE JOBS - All posts tagged STEVE JOBS

One of Steve’s greatest attributes was that he was willing to take huge risks and develop crazy new products (like an MP3 player with a scroll wheel on it or a tablet computer called iPad) and platforms (like iTunes or iOS). The biggest (only?) risk that Tim Cook’s had Apple undertake — the upcoming Apple Watch. If Steve Jobs were running Apple today, the Apple Watch would definitely have been called iWatch (remember how Apple had to pay up to buy the iPhone name from Cisco?). And the Apple iWatch would have been out last year or the year before.

Apple looks ready to head higher as a safe haven stock if the momentum money flees the highflyers. Also, Apple likely has more upside along with a continued broader stock market rally. I’m picturing Apple turning Apple TV into an iOS-iPad-like platform that runs the same apps as your iPad does, but on your TV. That and a bigger iPhone and a bigger iPad are all likely this year. I’ve been long AAPL common for more than a decade and recently bought some calls.

All this to say that I have been testing out the latest Apple iOS7 operating system for the iPhone and iPad and I’m one of the fans of the new system. Big time. The new iPhone 5S and 5C are not the biggest Apple story today, despite the huge lines and very strong demand for the new phones around the globe today. And frankly, the huge lines are a bit of a surprise to me given how strong the anti-Apple backlash on Wall Street has been that I warned about back when Apple was near its all-time highs. Of course, there’s a big difference between an anti-Apple backlash on Wall Street vs. how the rest of the world feels.

It’s important to remember that even as the forces of governments and the central banks around the world are these days making most of the biggest stocks in the world move in tandem with the broader markets, that we are focused on finding the best stocks in the world within that broader market and those biggest stocks (and smaller stocks too of course). In other words, it’s a market of stocks, not always just a “stock market”. Here’s a chart of Apple since I bought it in 2003 vs. the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and the DJIA, courtesy of Marketwatch.

I personally still hold some of the Apple that I’ve had for many years now. You dear readers have seen me buy and trim around my Apple core position for years now and that’s what I still suggest doing. I’m likely to buy some Apple common here while it’s down below $400, just to add back to my core position. It could take some time to get a sustainable pop in this stock. But then again, the stock market sure is good at keeping traders, even Apple bears, on their toes. And don’t forget to check out what Robert Marcin says about whether or not it’s he thinks it’s time to buy Apple.

More recently, how about this for some perspective — the IRS collected a total of of $18,842,76 in estate and gift taxes in 2010. Apple will be paying out $12 billion a year in dividends now. One company will pay out almost as much to its investors as the grand total of all the amount of estate and gift taxes that the IRS brought in last year.

I’ll hold my long-term core position of Apple steady and I recommend, as I have since the stock was at $7 (see A true love story: Apple from $7 to $311 per share for example), holding the core position. But I don’t like the near-term set up here for AAPL.

And that leads me to the one issue I always had with Steve Jobs and the Apple board, that of backdating Steve’s and other executives’ options prices without telling me and the other shareholders after they’d made that share/option switch that they did tell us about. This is not the time nor the place for that though.

I often tell people in an interview when they ask me about Apple and how I bought it at and told my subscribers to buy it at $7 back in March 20003 that without that call, I’m not sure I’d even be in the studio with them. Apple’s wild success and the ride it took me and my investors and my readers on helped build my entire career and even in this column, that continues to this day. Thank you, Steve Jobs.

About The Cody Word

Cody Willard writes the Revolution Investing investment newsletter for MarketWatch and posts the trades from his personal account at TradingWithCody.com He is the founder of WallStreetAll-Stars.com and the principal of CL Willard Capital. Cody serves as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is on the University of New Mexico Alumni Board. He was an anchor on the Fox Business Network, where he was the co-host of the long-time #1-rated show on the network, Fox Business Happy Hour. Cody, a former hedge fund manager, and his stock picks and economic outlooks have been featured on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ABC’s 20/20, CBS Evening News, CNBC’s SquawkBox, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, as well as in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other outlets.